Building toward quagmire?

The war in Afghanistan is quickly becoming President Obama’s biggest foreign-policy headache, with some saying it’s a potential quagmire. At eight years and counting, it’s the longest war in U.S. history. As the Soviets learned in the 1980s, Afghanistan is a tough nut for any foreign power to crack.

Here are a couple of charts—from the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit that analyzes and clarifies federal data—that illustrate America’s investment in Afghanistan. We didn’t have room to include a third chart showing the number of U.S. fatalities there. The annual numbers have risen steadily, from fewer than 50 in 2002 to 239 as of Oct. 6, 2009. Altogether 813 Americans have died in Afghanistan.

Source: National Priorities Project